# List of people from the Isle of Wight

This is a list of notable people born in or strongly associated with the Isle of Wight, alphabetically within categories.

## Born on the Isle of Wight

* Dr Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School and immortalised in Tom Brown's Schooldays, born in Cowes
* King Arwald, last pagan king in England and last king of the Isle of Wight, died 686
* Lee Bradbury, ex professional footballer, currently manager of Havant and Waterlooville, born in Cowes
* Danny Briggs, Hampshire and England cricketer
* Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères, born in St Helens
* Craig Douglas (Terry Perkins) pop singer, born 1941 in Newport, topped the charts in 1959 with Only Sixteen
* Arthur Percy Morris Fleming, born 1881 in Newport, electrical engineer and pioneer in the development of radio and submarine detection
* Thomas Fleming, judge and Lord Chief Justice
* Uffa Fox, yacht designer
* Vivian Fuchs, Antarctic explorer
* Marius Goring, born Newport
* Maxwell Gray (Mary Gleed Tuttiett), novelist
* Lauran Hibberd Slacker-pop singer, born in Newport
* Sheila Hancock, actress, born in Blackgang
* Robert Hooke, scientist, born in Freshwater
* Jeremy Irons, actor, born in Cowes and raised in St Helens
* Phill Jupitus, comedian, born in Newport
* Mark King, born in Gurnard nr. Cowes, bass player and vocalist in pop/funk band Level 42
* Suri Krishnamma, film director and writer, born in Shanklin
* Cliff Michelmore, television presenter and producer born in Cowes
* Albert Midlane, failed ironmonger, poet and hymn-writer was born in Newport
* Anthony Minghella, film director; born in Ryde; his parents run the Minghella's Ice Cream company on the Island; his film The English Patient includes footage of Shanklin Pier; on accepting his Best Picture Oscar, he said, "This is a great day for the Isle of Wight!"
* Loretta Minghella, charity executive and solicitor
* Brian Murphy, actor, born in Ventnor
* Noel Odell, geologist and mountaineer, born in St Lawrence
* Queen Osburga, daughter of Oslac, Chief Butler of England and mother of King Alfred the Great
* Adam Pacitti, Leader of Cultaholic, born in Ryde
* Arthur Cecil Pigou, economist and proponent of Pigouvian taxes, born in Ryde
* Albert Pollard, historian, born in Ryde
* Horace Rawlins, golfer, winner of the first U.S. Open in 1895
* Jake Scrimshaw, professional footballer
* Henry Sewell, first Prime Minister of New Zealand, born on the island in 1807 and lived there until emigrating to New Zealand at the age of 45
* Kelly Sotherton, heptathlete, born in Newport
* Polly Toynbee, journalist, born at Yafford
* George Westmore, founder of Hollywood's first make-up department, born 1879 in Newport. His son Bud Westmore is credited as make-up artist on over 450 movies
* Harry Frederick Whitchurch V.C., born in Sandown
* Eric Charles Twelves Wilson V.C., born in Sandown in 1912

## Raised on the Isle of Wight

* E. Power Biggs, concert organist
* Frank Cadogan Cowper, artist, raised at Lisle Court, Wootton
* Uffa Fox, raised in Cowes
* William Hutt, MP and colonial administrator, educated in Ryde
* George, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
* Donna Langley, film executive and chairwoman of Universal Pictures, raised on the island.
* Fidelis Morgan, actress and writer, raised in Bonchurch
* Nicholas Dingley alias Razzle, drummer for Hanoi Rocks, raised in Binstead
* Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, raised in East Dene, Bonchurch
* Bear Grylls, climber, youngest Briton to reach the summit of Mount Everest and live; survival expert; host of Man vs. Wild

## Lived on the Isle of Wight

* Sam Browne, soldier, retired to Ryde
* Master Gunner Daniel Cambridge VC (later Yeoman of the Guard), stationed at Redoubt Battery, Fort Redoubt, Freshwater Bay, until 1871 (Census)
* Julia Margaret Cameron, photographer, lived in Freshwater Bay
* Lewis Carroll, author, lived at Sandown while working on Alice in Wonderland
* Winston Churchill, visited Ventnor for extended periods throughout his life
* Helen Clare, soprano singer
* Sir Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft, spent two years in East Cowes working on his prototypes
* E. E. Cowper, novelist, lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
* Frank Cowper, yachtsman and author; designed and lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
* Charles Darwin, naturalist, lived for a period in 1867 in the Kings Head Hotel in Sandown
* Charles Dickens, author, lived in Bonchurch for 3 months in 1849
* King Charles I, held prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle for a year
* Ken Dodd, comedian, had a holiday home at Freshwater Bay
* Jack Douglas, actor from a series of Carry On films
* Trevor Duncan, composer (known for the Dr Finlay's Casebook theme), lived in Bonchurch
* King Ethelred the Unready, fled to the Isle of Wight in 1012 from the Danes under Sweyn Forkbeard
* Gertrude Fenton, novelist and editor of the Carisbrooke magazine
* Uffa Fox, yacht designer, lived in Puckaster
* David Gascoyne, 20th-century surrealist poet
* Pamela Green, infamous nude model of the 1950s and 1960s, lived in Yarmouth with the dambuster Douglas Webb, DFM
* King Harold II and his brother Tostig Godwinson, have estates at Kern and Nunwell respectively
* Jet Harris, musician with The Shadows
* Peter de Heyno, defended the Carisbrooke Castle 1377 against French–Castilian troops
* Robyn Hitchcock, musician, lived in Yarmouth from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and cited it in many of his works of the period
* John Oliver Hobbes (Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie), novelist, lived part-time in Steephill, 1900–1906
* Geoffrey Hughes, actor, lived in Newport
* Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Samuel Raymond Jarvis died at his home, Cove Cottage in Ventnor, in 1868
* Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, lived at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
* John Keats, poet, moved to the island in 1814; areas of Shanklin are named after him
* Kenneth Kendall, journalist and TV presenter, lived in Cowes where his partner owned an art gallery
* Charles Kingsley, spent childhood there
* Marek Larwood, actor and comedian
* Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, spent the summer in Shanklin in 1868
* Guglielmo Marconi did radio experiments in Alum Bay and Niton around 1900
* Karl Marx, lodged in Ryde in the 1870s and in Ventnor in the 1880s
* John Milne, inventor of the horizontal pendulum seismograph, retired from the Japanese Imperial College of Engineering in Shide, Isle of Wight
* David Niven, actor, lived in Bembridge as a child
* Isaac Pitman, invented a shorthand system, lived for a time in Sandown
* J.B. Priestley, author, playwright and broadcaster, lived at Brook for over a decade from 1948
* John Morgan Richards, cigarette and patent medicine entrepreneur, lived in Steephill, 1903–1918
* Legh Richmond, preacher and writer of the religious tract The Dairyman's Daughter, curate for Yaverland and Brading
* Frederick Riddle, viola player, died in Newport
* John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone, Secretary of State for War in the years leading up to the First World War; MP and Justice of the Peace for the Isle of Wight
* Michael Sheard, actor, lived in Ryde
* Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, lived in Bonchurch
* Shaw Taylor, television presenter, known for the catchphrase "keep 'em peeled", lived in Totland
* Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet, lived in Farringford in Freshwater Bay
* Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, rented a house in Seaview
* Edward Upward, long-lived author and part of the Auden Group in the 1930s, lived in Sandown from 1961 to 2004
* Queen Victoria, had one of her residences at Osborne House in East Cowes
* Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb, lived and worked in Cowes
* Douglas Webb, DFM air gunner with 617 Squadron on the Dambusters raid; partner of the infamous nude model Pamela Green; lived in Yarmouth

## Currently resident

* Raymond Allen, television scriptwriter best known for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, born and lives in Ryde
* Keegan Brown, professional darts player
* Patrick Buckland, CEO of Stainless Games, creator of Carmageddon
* Hester Chambers, founding member of Wet Leg
* Sarah Close, singer-songwriter and YouTuber, born and lives on the island
* Melvyn Hayes, actor, lives in Ryde
* David Icke, conspiracy theorist, lives in Ryde
* Mark King, Level 42 musician
* Dame Ellen MacArthur, sailor, based in Cowes
* The Osbourne family have a holiday home in Yaverland
* Dick Taylor, founding member of The Rolling Stones and the Pretty Things
* Rhian Teasdale, founding member of Wet Leg
* Alan Titchmarsh, author and TV presenter
* M J Trow, author and teacher